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Friday, March 12, 2010

It was mid-morning in Rome. I was wanting to capture some quintessential Italian images and then I saw it - a classic red vintage vespa! These old vespas are getting harder to find, and for me, nothing says vintage vespa more than red...

There was a man standing quite close to the vespa, and there was also a pole leaning on the wall next to the vespa. I decided that neither of these elements added to the scene I wanted to capture so I moved around the vespa to see if I could shoot at an angle or distance that would eliminate them from the scene. Unfortunately, given the view and perspective I wanted, it wasn't possible. I also knew that removing a man's leg and/or pole was a very quick and easy exercise in photoshop so in this case I decided it was worth shooting.

I shot three images of this scene. The first, as I find is often the way, was the best. It is the one I have chosen for the Capture Italy website gallery. It has clear diagonal lines and good context. This is it below, before photoshop post-production.

I then tried two different angles, in an attempt to include less of the unwanted background elements, but neither of them worked for me. You can see them below:

Unwanted people and items in backgrounds are a common challenge you face when shooting street scenes. You can choose to include them to add interest to the scene (in this case neither the man nor the pole added to what I was trying to achieve - if the man had been a typical old Italian man, and the pole had been his walking stick, perhaps they might have been worth including); or you can attempt to shoot so as to exclude them. This means you need to walk around your object and shoot from different angles/perspectives. Your last resort is to rely on photoshop.

Photoshop post-production:I used the clone tool to remove the pole and leg, I applied a layers level and a filter from Alien Skin Exposure 2 filter software for the vintage yellowing effect.

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Happy Shooting from Lisa and Dianne!